Table of contents for 62 in Android Advisor

To celebrate the 10th major release of Android, Google has a present for all of us: a dark theme. After several starts and stops and half-efforts, Google is finally bringing full dark mode to all Android Q phones, and from what we’ve seen it’s glorious. But while dark mode will probably be the most popular feature of Android Q, it’s only a small part of what the next-generation OS will deliver. From security and privacy to folding screens and 5G, Android Q is packed with features that will transform your phone. Here are the six features we’re most excited about (other than that sweet, sweet dark theme) after witnessing the Google I/O keynote. 1. Live Caption If you’ve ever been in a quiet room and needed to watch a…

Price: £469 inc VAT from fave.co/2JaJAUm We’ve already looked at the Pixel 3a (page 14), so it’s now time to look at its big brother – the Pixel 3a XL. Design There’s not a huge amount to say about the design because Google has kept the same design language from the existing phones. So the 3a XL is a similar size to the Pixel 3 XL (£869) – 160.1x76.1x8.2mm compared to the latter’s 158x76.7x7.9mm. Plus, it has the same two-tone finish on the back. With a £400 price difference between the two phones, Google has had to cut costs somewhere, so there’s no waterproofing here. Otherwise, it’s just smaller tweaks, such as the lower speaker being mounted to the side of the USB-C port instead of forward facing. The pressure…

Price: £899 inc VAT from fave.co/2GktGVb Last year we were impressed with Huawei’s P20 Pro, which was then eclipsed six months later by the Mate 20 Pro. Now, another six months on, we have the P30 Pro, which takes a lot of the best features from the Mate 20 Pro and makes them even better. It isn’t the only new model. There’s also the P30, which is arguably just as good a choice for different reasons.Read our review at fave.co/2v2DVH7 to find out why. Design One of the biggest surprises is that the P30 Pro is more like an upgrade of the Mate 20 Pro, not its predecessor, the P20 Pro. The P-series has always led with camera innovations, while the Mate series has been the bigger-screened cousin that focused…

Samsung’s Galaxy S10 and Note9 are sort of like the Las Vegas of smartphones. Compared to the simple and understated approach of, say, an iPhone or Google Pixel 3, Samsung bombards you with settings to tweak and features to try. Much like a walk down the strip at night, this approach can feel overwhelming. You can tone down the gaudiest features and tune others to suit your needs better. 1. Remap the Bixby button The mandatory inclusion of the Bixby voice assistant is arguably the worst feature of modern Samsung phones. Fortunately, you can remap the button with a third-party app called bxActions. Before you install the app, make sure to launch Bixby once, then go through the standard setup process. Next, launch bxActions, walk through the setup process,…

Sayonara, Siri. During Google’s I/O keynote, the company revealed several jaw-dropping new features coming to Google Assistant, and the AI-enhanced software on Android phones appears ready to run laps around Apple’s still-too-simple rival. Google calls it “the next-generation Assistant”. The secret ingredient? Moving Google Assistant’s processing from the cloud to your device. CEO Sundar Pichai claims that the company managed to condense Assistant’s speech recognition models from 100GB in size all the way down to a mere 50MB, letting it run directly on your phone. “This breakthrough enabled us to create a next-generation Assistant that processes speech on-device at nearly zero latency, with transcription that happens in real time, even when you have no network connection,” Google revealed in its announcement post. Google says the shift allows Assistant to process…

At long last, the Pixel 3a has arrived. At its I/O Developer’s Conference, Google took the wraps off its newest handsets, and lo and behold they look at whole lot like the Pixels that came before. Except they’re very different. A mid-cycle release with a far lower price tag than the Pixel 3 or any of its flagship peers, the £399 Pixel 3a and £469 3a XL don’t have frosted glass or wireless charging, or even a dual selfie cam. Sure, they have a new colour and a headphone jack, but they’re very much in the vein of a mid-tier Android phone, with specs and features to match. But if you dig a little deeper, the Pixel 3a and 3a XL have a whole lot more to offer than a…

Price: £249 inc VAT The Honor 20 itself and the rumoured Pro version won’t appear until the end of May, so the new Lite version can have its 15 minutes of fame before the main launch. Highlights include the triple rear cameras, a big screen with tiny bezels and a whopping 32Mp selfie camera. Most of today’s important boxes are ticked, then, but does the rest of the 20 Lite’s spec sheet offer enough to persuade you to part with your money? Design For every Honor model, there’s often an equivalent Huawei phone and the 20 Lite is the spitting image of Huawei’s P30 Lite. Although they look identical, there are subtle differences: the camera protrudes much less on the 20 Lite and the bottom edge is curved rather than…

If you aren’t already protecting your most personal accounts with two-factor or two-step authentication, you should be. An extra line of defence that’s tougher than the strongest password, 2FA is extremely important to blocking hacks and attacks on your personal data. If you don’t quite understand what it is, we’ve broken it all down for you. What it is Two-factor authentication is basically a combination of two of the following factors: Somethingyouknow Something you have Something you are Something you know is your password, so 2FA always starts there. Rather than let you into your account once your password is entered, however, two-factor authentication requires a second set of credentials, like when the DMV wants your licence and a utility bill. So that’s where factors 2 and 3 come…

Price: £399 inc VAT from fave.co/2PUAOdX As expected via the usual onslaught of Internet leaks, Google has announced some new mid-range smartphones. The firm’s own-brand Android range is now more affordable thanks to the addition of the Pixel 3a, and we were lucky enough to have an early look at it. Design A mid-range device, especially a version of a flagship phone, can often be a much poorer construct due to the price difference. Google has, however, kept things very similar with the 3a, and even side by side you’d struggle to tell it apart from the regular Pixel 3 (£739). The design is kept the same with all the little details found on flagship devices. That includes a two-tone finish on the back with a shiny glass section around…

Price: £219 inc VAT from fave.co/2Ynkm97 As well as new Pixel 3a phones, Google used its I/O developer conference to announce another smart display. Now branded with the Nest name, we’ve taken a look at the Nest Hub Max. We loved the Home Hub when we reviewed it last year and still do, but it was a shame that Google didn’t offer a larger option with a built-in camera. Well that’s exactly what the Nest Hub Max offers so we’re rather pleased. Before we begin, it’s worth explaining that the branding is now ‘Google Nest’ with the two coming together. Google has owned Nest for five years now, so it’s no surprise that it has decided to use the names together. The Hub Max combines Google and Nest technology so…

Price: £599 inc VAT from fave.co/2IR6EHL Not one of the rugged phones we’ve seen has top-end specs. The logic – we presume – is that if you are so careless with your smartphone to need a tough phone you are unlikely to want to pay top-dollar for something fancy. But we just cannot get behind the idea that manual labourers, extreme sports fans and the general clumsy have no interest in also having top performance. There should be something that ticks all their boxes. AGM does not force people to choose between durability, performance and design. It falls somewhere in the middle, revealing some durable design choices but toning down the rugged accents, and fitting a 2018 flagship-class processor. That might mean that ultimately it isn’t the best smartphone for…

Ever since its 2016 debut, the Pixel phone has always deserved better: better design, better camera hardware, better carrier support, better price. Instead, what we got was an expensive phone that would have been long forgotten if not for the ‘G’ stamped on the back. But despite its high price tag, the Google stamp of approval has come to be synonymous with a phone that delivers on the things that matter. It might not have the glamour of a Galaxy or the appeal of an iPhone, but the Pixels are still considered among the finest phones on the market, mainly for three reasons: Assistant, Android, and computational photography. With software that shines that brightly, what Google’s really selling here is a platform, while the phone is just the vessel. Now…